Pitt's Paramount-based Plan B production company beat out DiCaprio's Warners-based Appian Way shingle for the rights. THR saysWorld War Z "tackles the zombie genre but is set 10 years after a great global zombie epidemic and is a serious oral history of the future zombie told from many perspectives from around the world."

THR says there's no hard feelings between Pitt's company and DiCaprio's, and that the studio views Brooks' story as a potential franchise.